Teenager accused of kidnapping cousin's 2-week-old

[Provost]

[release]A DuPage County judge set a $150,000 bond Wednesday for a teenager accused of kidnapping her cousin's baby in Villa Park after she lied to her boyfriend about being pregnant.

Diana Mercado is charged with kidnapping, obstructing justice and endangering the life of a child.

If convicted, the 18-year-old Cicero girl may face up to seven years in prison. She also is eligible for probation.

At 4:50 p.m. Tuesday, police rushed to the 200 block of South Monteray Avenue for a 911 call of a missing 2-week-old baby boy.

The 19-year-old mother said she briefly left the infant in the care of her two cousins, Mercado and a 15-year-old girl, while she went into another room to prepare his next feeding.

"When she returned to the room, the infant and her two cousins were gone," Prosecutor Nick Catizone told DuPage Associate Judge Liam Brennan in Wednesday afternoon bond court.

Catizone said the frantic mother called Mercado, but her cousin denied any wrongdoing. The child's father then called 911. Police had arrived by the time the two cousins returned to the Villa Park house. Both initially lied to police about what happened to the baby, Catizone said. He said each then blamed the other, and the 15-year-old cousin led police to the baby, about one block away, along the Illinois Prairie Path.

"The baby was found tucked in behind two trees a distance off the path where no one on the path would have been able to see him," Catizone said. "Detectives were able to determine the baby was left 10 minutes unattended."

The child was not physically harmed. The 15-year-old girl told police Mercado urged her to take the baby because his teen mother had postpartum depression and did not want the infant, Catizone said.
[/release]

[URL="http://www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=408392&src=109"]Source[/URL]

What was this supposed to accomplish? :what:

[Chaohord]

So they left the baby in a tree?

Why?

[Afgman]

[QUOTE=Chaohord;24851245]So they left the baby in a tree?

Why?[/QUOTE]

They smoked crack and watched tarzan.

[JinkoMK]

Why even bother stealing a baby at that age, let alone from your cousin.